India’s parliament on Monday passed a bill to repeal three laws aiming at deregulating agricultural markets, bowing to pressure from farmers who have protested for over a year to demand that the laws be rolled back.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration introduced the farm bills last year through an executive order, traditionally reserved for emergency legislation, triggering India’s longest-running farmers’ protest. Parliament then passed the legislation via a voice vote, drawing widespread criticism that it had rushed through the laws without proper debate.
In its first meeting of the winter session on Monday, both houses of Parliament rushed through a bill to scrap the laws amid protests by the opposition that demanded a discussion on the issue.
The legislation will likely be signed off by President Ram Nath Kovind by Monday night.
But farmers’ unions have declared to keep up the fight until they secure further concessions from the government.
“It’s a victory for farmers. We are happy the laws have been repealed,” Harinder Happy, spokesman for Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a coalition of more than 40 farmers’ unions, told SinghStation.
But he added he was disappointed that no discussion on the controversial laws took place in Parliament.
“The way [farm laws] were brought without any discussion with opposition parties or farmers last year, the same way they have been repealed now which is not good.”
Modi’s reversal came ahead of important elections for his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, both home to a large numbers of farmers.
The BJP already holds power in Uttar Pradesh, but its support is under pressure over a struggling economy and the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
If farmers desert the ruling party, it will not only shrink prospects to form a state government for a second term but also weaken chances for the party to get an overwhelming majority in the 2024 national elections.
Political analysts say these upcoming elections are a major reason behind the surprise move to withdraw the three farm laws, but that it is too early to say whether it will work.
The government claimed the legislations, passed in September last year, aimed to deregulate farm produce markets.
But protesting farmers said the laws would lead to a corporate takeover of the vast agriculture sector, which is the largest source of livelihood in India and about 70 percent of rural households depend on it for a living.